A Prairie Home Companion 40th Anniversary Special

A Prairie Home Companion 40th Anniversary Special

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of this "above average" radio show by tuning in for the live broadcast anniversary special.

If you showed up on July 6, 1974 at the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College in Saint Paul to attend the very first broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion, you were in select company. There were about 12 people in the audience. Forty years later the show will return to the Macalester campus for an anniversary celebration with three days of music, comedy, food, and festivities July 4-6th. The show expects a slightly larger attendance than that first performance. In fact thousands of fans will make their way to Macalester for the festivities.

Special guests coming together to play on various stages, including the 3-hour extended Anniversary Broadcast, are friends who have appeared on the show over the last four decades -- some from the very first show. A partial list includes Old Crow Medicine Show, Iris DeMent, Robin & Linda Williams, The Wailin’ Jennys, Butch Thompson, Jearlyn & Jevetta Steele, and members from the original Powdermilk Biscuit Band, along with Richard Dworsky and the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band and the Royal Academy of Radio Actors – Sue Scott, Tim Russell and sound effects man, Fred Newman. A Prairie Home Companion 40th Anniversary Special﻿ airs Saturday, July 5 at 6 p.m. on Classical 91.5.